UnDivided (42 page)

“Toothpaste back in the tube.” Connor says.

The admiral is pleased that Connor has said something he understands. “Yeah, that's the long and short of it.”

Connor finds his mind fixed on poor Bryce Barlow. There was no one to fight for his reintegration. No one to bring him back. What made Connor any more worth saving than him?

And what of Risa? Just because he's here, doesn't mean she freed herself from Divan.

“Piano!” he demands. “Wheelchair! Heartbeat! Kiss!” He grunts in frustration, bears down, feeling an ache in his brain, and triumphantly pulls out her name. “Risa!” He says. “Risa! Rand McNally Risa?”

And he hears quietly from somewhere across the room, “I'm here, Connor.”

She's been here all along, keeping her distance. How awful must he look if she has to build up the courage to approach him? Or maybe she was just trying to get her emotions under control, because he can see that her eyes are moist. If there's one thing Risa hates it's for people to see her cry.

As Risa comes into view, the admiral moves away. Or maybe Connor's mind is only able to hold one of them in his awareness at once.
Insulted brain,
he thinks.

She takes his hand. It hurts, but he lets her take it. “I'm so happy you're awake. We were all worried. It's a miracle you're here.”

“Miracle,” he says. “Happy. Miracle.”

“It's going to be hard at first. To move and to think. You'll
need rehabilitation, but I know you'll be back to your old self in no time.”

Old self,
he thinks, and something hits him that brings on a sudden wave of anxiety. “Eating machine! Blood in the water! Amity Island!”

Risa shakes her head, nowhere near understanding him. So in spite of the pain, he raises his right arm, and finds what he's looking for:

The shark.

It's still there! Thank goodness it's still there!
He doesn't know why, but the fact that it's still a part of him gives him great comfort.

He takes a deep breath of relief. “Fireplace,” he says. “Cocoa. Blanket.”

“Are you cold?

“No,” he says, happy to have found the right word. It inspires him to hack through the thicket to find more words. “I'm warm. Safe. Grateful.” The cages begin to fall in the zoo. His thoughts begin to free themselves.

Risa goes on to tell of the things that happened while he was “in transit,” and how he's been in a two-week coma since his rewinding.

“Trick or treat,” he says.

“Not quite,” Risa tells him. “Another two weeks.”

She tells him how she and Divan's other Unwinds were freed, but that Argent never made it out. She tells him how Divan's black-market auctions have mysteriously stopped. “We think he's focusing his attention on fighting the Burmese Dah Zey.”

Connor considers that. “Godzilla,” he says. “Godzilla versus Mothra.”

“Indeed,” says the admiral from somewhere out of his line
of sight. “Best way to save humanity is to turn the monsters against one another.”

Risa tries to cheer him up by talking about Cam, and what he accomplished on his own. “He's a hero now!” Risa tells him. “He brought down Proactive Citizenry, just like he said he would—and that awful woman who blackmailed me is being tried for ‘crimes against humanity.' They're actually calling her ‘Madame Mengele,' and I can't think of anyone more deserving.”

There's more, about Lev, who, as usual, almost died but didn't, and Grace, who made herself some sweet deal with the organ printer—and Hayden, who's called for a march on Washington—but Connor finds he can't hold on to the details, so he closes his eyes and lets her words wash over him like a healing spell.

He knows it won't always be like this. It will get better each day. Maybe not easier but better . . . and yet he senses that the mere act of having been unwound has taken something from him. No matter how much he heals, he'll always have a deep and abiding war wound. Now he knows what Cam must feel. Not so much an emptiness, but a gap between what was and what is, like air trapped between the seams of his soul. He tries to express it to Risa, but the only word that comes is—

“Hole . . .” He grips Risa's hand tighter. “Hole, Risa, hole . . .”

And she smiles. “Yes, Connor,” she says. “You're whole. You're finally whole.”

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The granite and marble markers of history hold memories that can't be unwound, especially so, the monuments of Washington, DC. They have witnessed change and stagnation, glorious feats of justice, as well as shameful failures of democracy. Lincoln's and Jefferson's eyes have seen great strides in Martin Luther King's dream, and have welcomed him as he strides forward in stone between them. Yet those same unblinking eyes have seen Vietnam War protesters teargassed, and thousands tranq'd during the first teen uprising. None of these things can they forget any more than the war memorials can forget the names they so solemnly bear.

A gathering begins to form before those vigilant eyes during the last few days of October. Airlines scramble to add flights to their schedules, the metro is at constant capacity, and vehicular traffic within the capital ensures that walking is the fastest way to get anywhere aboveground.

The grassy expanse of the National Mall begins to speckle
with tents in a slow but relentless occupation days before the actual event, which, as it is scheduled for November first, has been dubbed by the media as the “All Saint's Uprising.”

From Capitol Hill the portent couldn't be more ominous than the obsidian-dark wall of a thunderstorm rolling in from the Chesapeake Bay.

•  •  •

Far to the west, there is another, smaller gathering. This one on a commune outside of Omaha, Nebraska. The gathering is a wedding—a bittersweet one at best, because of the parties involved. Una Jacali will wed Wil Tashi'ne in the only way she can.

The Arápache council forbade it to be done on tribal land. The Tashi'nes, although they love Una dearly, could not support it either, and chose not to attend.

It was Lev who came to Una's aid, and suggested that a revival commune—a place dedicated to the virtual union of someone divided—would be openminded when it came to Una's concept of “divisional matrimony.” And Lev knew just the guy to ask.

As it turned out, CyFi and his dads were more than happy to not only provide the venue, but also to track down the beneficiaries of Wil Tashi'ne's parts—a task much easier now that every last rabbit hole of Proactive Citizenry's database has been opened to public scrutiny.

Not all of Wil's parts would come, but enough agreed. Perhaps they agreed to come out of curiosity, or for the novelty, or just for the chance to meet Camus Comprix, who is expected to be among them. All told, there will be twenty-seven grooms, representing almost two-thirds of Wil Tashi'ne. That a number of the grooms will be women seems little more than par for the course.

“True, the course is about as surreal as an Escher staircase,” one of CyFi's dads pointed out, “but what's life without a little vertigo?”

“I gotta tell ya, Fry, you really did a number on yourself with those tattoos—and that fur hat just ain't working.”

Lev peels the kinkajou from his head, where he often goes, but rarely pees anymore. Lev lets him cling to his shoulder instead. “First of all,” Lev tells CyFi, “they're not numbers, they're names; and second, don't insult Mahpee, or he might claw your eyes out.”

“What? Little umber Elmo got claws?”

Lev smiles. It's good to see CyFi again, even if it is under unusual circumstances. Of course, any circumstances are better than when they last saw each other.

“So, I hear you got a girlfriend,” teases CyFi.

“Kind of, I think. It's a long-distance thing,” Lev tells him. “She's gone back to Indiana with her family, but I'm still on the Rez in Colorado.”

CyFi raises his eyebrows. “Could be worse, if you catch my drift.”

The sun comes out from behind a stray cloud, lighting up the garden. As the day is unseasonably warm, it was decided to have the wedding outside, within the circle of stones at the garden's center, the participants within the circle, and the guests standing just outside of it. With no tradition for this sort of thing, rules and structure are all spur-of-the-moment. Right now all the “grooms” mill around the inner circle getting to know one another and asking logistical questions of the minister, who keeps offering up shrugs.

Then, just before the ceremony begins, Lev hears a familiar voice behind him.

“I swear, I can't leave you alone for five minutes without you doing something crazy.”

He turns to see Connor standing behind him, and not just Connor but Risa as well. The sight of them takes his breath away, quite literally, and Lev starts coughing and gasping. It's the nuisance of having only one lung. Supposedly, Elina's getting one of those new machines on the Rez that can grow him a second one, so it won't always be like this.

“Whoa,” says Connor, “I didn't mean to freak you into cardiac arrest.”

“I'm okay, I'm okay,” Lev says, finally catching his breath. But as he looks at Connor, he can see that he's got his own issues. He's walking with a cane, and even though he's wearing a sports coat, Lev can see seams on his wrists, along his neckline—and even along his jawline. He suspects there are many more beneath his clothes that Lev can't see.

“What happened?” Lev asks.

Connor shares a loaded glance with Risa, then says, “Let's just say I had a gardening accident.”

Lev accepts it without further question, knowing that with Connor sometimes it's best not to probe. It suddenly occurs to Lev how long it's been since he, Connor, and Risa have been together—but in a way, it's the first time, because until today, they were never truly together. When Connor kidnapped him, Lev was a tithe, who ran from both of them the first chance he got. Then, when they met again at the Graveyard, Lev had already detached himself from everyone and everything. He was already a clapper. But now all three of them have come out of their own gardening accidents, and are truly in the same place. Wherever that is.

“Well, the important thing is that you're here,” Lev says. And then he realizes something. “But . . . why are you here?”

“To see you, of course,” Risa tells him. “Cyrus told me you'd be here.” Then she turns to CyFi. “Hi, Cyrus. Good to see you again.”

“Wait a second,” says Lev. “You two know each other?”

But before Risa can answer, a guitar begins to play, and Lev gasps—almost going into a coughing fit again—because he recognizes the music right away. That's Wil playing! Lev turns to see Camus Comprix sitting in the center of the circle—one of the few grooms actually wearing a tuxedo. More so than ever, he expresses Wil's soulful music so perfectly, Lev could swear Wil is really there.

In a moment Una comes down from the main house, flowers and ribbons woven into her long hair and wearing a traditional native gown. She doesn't smile, but maintains an unreadable expression that speaks of more emotions than can possibly mix.

She enters the circle, and in front of the minister, Cam takes Una's hand. But when the time comes, it's someone else, a man with Wil's voice, who speaks the vows, and Una looks into the eyes of yet another when she says hers. And although she exchanges rings with Cam, when the minister says, “You may now kiss the bride,” that honor goes to someone else entirely. Lev finds his internal compass spinning, and he wonders how something can be so beautiful and so horrible at the same time.

“That's going to be one crowded wedding bed,” says Connor, and Lev can't help but laugh, but he quickly settles back toward somber. This commune, this wedding—it's all collateral damage from unwinding. Even if the impossible happens, and the Unwind Accord is overthrown, they'll all still be tallying the psychological cost for years to come.

“I wanted to show you this,” Risa tells him as Una and her entourage of grooms lead the way to the main house for a small reception. Risa holds out her right arm to show that there's a name tattooed on her wrist.

“You too, huh?” It doesn't surprise him. It's become the thing to do. Everyone is getting the name of an Unwind inked
on their right arms. The idea is that it's in a place where they will see it every single day. The running gag is that Washington politicians should get them tattooed in their colons.

“Is Bryce Barlow someone you knew?” Lev asks.

Risa looks dolefully at the name on her wrist. “Just like the names on you, he's a boy I'll never meet.”

“Did you hear the latest?” Connor asks. “Someone's proposing they build a memorial out of the old arm of the Statue of Liberty, and engrave it with the names of everyone who's ever been unwound by the Juvenile Authority.”

Lev shifts Mahpee on his shoulder and smiles at both Connor and Risa, trying to take a mental snapshot of this moment, so he can save it forever. “I hope they do,” he says. “And I'm glad our names won't be on it.”